A single entity, such as a company, may include multiple data management systems. For example, there may be a customer relationship management (CRM) system, a marketing system, and master system. These data management systems may each require copies of the same data object(s). For example, each data management system may require a customer record, which includes information such as a customer's name, address, telephone number, social security number, and the like.
Effective distribution of data objects to multiple data management systems may require a way to identify information in the data objects prior to distribution. Similarly, effective consolidation of data objects in a central system may benefit from knowledge of information in the data objects. For example, this knowledge can prevent duplicate copies of data objects from being stored, which can waste of valuable memory space. Heretofore, positive key mapping was used to identify objects containing identical, or substantially identical, content. In positive key mapping, an indication is stored in a database, which identifies two or more data objects as containing identical information.